Jimna is a small town with a population of 100, 40 kms north of Kilcoy in rugged mountain country. The population is involved with the timber industry. There is a small general store and post office owned by an eccentric elderly man who has lived there all his life.

One morning in the early 70s he was found dead with head injuries and an attempt had been made to burn down his shop. Homicide Squad headed by Det Sgt Bill Osbourne responded to assist with the investigation.

The shop and residence had been ransacked as local residence believed he was a wealthy person who never went to a bank.

Early in the investigation it was noted that one resident Ronald Russell had left town. I cannot recall when and where Russell was located, but he as eventually charged with the murder.

My involvement was very interesting as it was a complicated crime scene. During the fire a lot of fruit cans exploded around the body and investigators wanted to negate that these exploding cans could have caused injuries to the deceased's head. Subsequent testing disclosed that the cans could not have injured the deceased.

A thorough search of the premises failed to find any stashed money. Did Russell find it, who knows as he denied his involvement.

The victims wallet was missing and a search of the premises and surrounding property failed to locate it.

Now the investigating detectives wanted it located and in their desperation they suggested that the night soil pit be searched. Sounded like a crappy idea to me. They persisted and the search was to be made on a Sunday morning. 

I gathered a few of my staff and we travelled to Kilcoy to meet them armed with overalls, gum boots, shovels and rakes. The convey of cars headed off to Jimna to commence the search. The detectives were all neatly dressed and as usual jobs like these are left to the workers to perform, all though we had plenty of supervisors. We led the way and after arriving at the pit we prepared to commence to turn over the motions.

I was about to receive the best news ever as the car load of supervisors proceeded on their journey one of the crew wanted a toilet break and as he walked into the bush low and behold he stumbled across the empty wallet.

When they arrived and told us of the find our mood changed from doom and gloom to one of jubilation. 

Det Clive Dewey (dec'd) became our pin up boy for a day. We changed and all proceeded to celebrate with an early start at one of the local Kilcoy pubs for a debrief.

In the pre Fitzgerald days police were awarded Favourable Records or Commendations for outstanding police work. I was very proud to receive a Favourable Record for the role I played in this investigation.

And there is more, some years later Russell escaped from prison and it was thought that he would travel to the Kilcoy area to hide. Sure enough one afternoon he was spotted by a local farmer. 

The next day I travelled to this location with a contingent of Emergency Squad members and a helicopter assisted. Russell was spotted and we quickly surrounded the prisoner who was armed with an axe, he gave up without a fight.

The whole episode was one of the highlights of my police career.